quaries; and it has induced them to divide the Iter in question as he has suggested (strangely in some instances); and thus they have confounded themselves and others upon it.

By the 11th and 13th Iters of Richard of Cirencester, which correspond with the 12th of Antoninus, in all essential points, the latter may be effectually explained, and the doubts thrown upon it removed. If there is any error in the 12th Iter of Antoninus, as it is given in Gibson's original edition of the Britannia, it is that the Terminus ad quem is not correctly stated, for Maridunum is there put as such, and yet it is again inserted as 36 miles from that terminus. The fact seems to be that this Iter appears to have commenced at Menapia (St. David's). How Calleva, which is about 100 miles from the line of this journey, could have been presumed to have belonged to it it is impossible to say.

This incorrect interpretation of the Iter has arisen, I have no doubt, from the want of distinguishing Maridunum from Moridunum, a station of the 15th Iter of Antoninus, and of the 16th Iter of Richard; and situated 15 miles to the east of Exeter (Isca Danmoniorum). To add to the confusion, we find that Maridunum is erroneously throughout Richard of Cirencester's work written Muridunum, a mistake that pervades some copies of Antoninus. The fact is there was no such place as Muridunum. In Ptolemy it is properly Maridunum. Impressed with the importance of these itineraries to the antiquities of Britain, and with their being more correct than they are generally allowed to be, I am anxious to submit anything that may serve to remove some portion of the obscurity under which these valuable historical records labour, and which has evidently been increased by the unwarrantable liberties that have been taken with them. Yours, &c.

J. P.

MR. URBAN,

Grey-street, Newcastle,

June 21. DURING some late repairs and cleaning in the fine old church of St. Nicholas, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the workmen, on tearing away some panelling around the altar, under the sill of the great east window, discovered, sunk into the wall, and beneath the two most southern mullions of the window, a finely sculptured stone, representing the crucifixion, surmounted by a beautiful moulding (which has probably extended all along the window), and inscribed below the cross, in black letter, "Merci Thsu." The cross has originally been painted red, and the other prominences black.

The stone, which is probably monumental, is about five and a half feet in height.

The sculpture within the tablet has originally been very beautiful, and in high relief; but the Goths in 1783, who then beautified the church, in order to make the filthy panelling lie to the wall, ordered the masons to chip off the prominences. The moulding on the top, however, is perfect.

Yours, &c. GEO. B. RICHARDSON.

THE scenes in which remarkable events have been transacted stand like beacons on the tide of time, by which the observer may track the course of history, and recall its facts to memory with double force, attested as they are by those silent and enduring wit

nesses.

He who has stood on the plains of Marathon or Cannæ, of Crecy or of Waterloo, can confirm this observation.

The conflicting claims of the Roses occupy a most prominent position in English history. The events to which they gave rise, and the characters who shared in them, have been set forth by our great national dramatist with a faithfulness and truth at once instructive and delightful. The master hand of Shakspeare could call up the different personages of his histories, and make them speak and reason and act just as they themselves must really have done. This is the highest attainment of poetic painting; some later writers have acquired it in no small degree. Wherever it exists it will ensure permanent popularity.

Every local site of an action which Shakspeare has brought on the stage has a double claim on the topographer and antiquary. The battle-field of Barnet will not, on these grounds, escape his notice. It has attracted the minute attention of a modern historical novelist, whose work I had not seen when I made these notes from a

personal inspection of the field, guided solely by the hints afforded by our old historians.

North of the rural township of Barnet, High Barnet, or Chipping Barnet as it has been variously called, the hill on which it is placed becomes a level plot about half a mile in breadth, part of which still remains open or common land. It declines on the east and west into a natural escarpment, and must have presented an eligible military position for an army endeavouring to cover the high road to London. On this little plain the roads GENT. MAG. VOL. XXII.

Shakspeare, Henry VI. Part 3.

to St. Alban's and flatfield diverge north-west and south-east, and on the spot where they divide was erected in 1740* an obelisk of stone about twenty feet in height, commemorating the sure tradition connected with the spot by this inscription on its eastern side:

"Here was fought the famous battle between Edward the Fourth and the Earl of Warwick, April 14, anno 1471, in which the Earl was defeated and slain."

The other sides of the stone record the distances from St. Alban's, &c. and prohibit its desecration by the four times repeated admonition, "Stick no bills." The obelisk is known by the name of Hadley High Stone.

The circumstances of the conflict at Barnet stand thus recorded by the collective reports of our national historians. When Edward the Fourth had been deposed from his regal office by the powerful Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick,

"That setter up and plucker down of kings,"

he fled to the court of the Duke of Burgundy, whose duchess, Margaret, was his sister. He was there supplied with a small body of troops, ships to transport them, and money. He set sail for England, and landed on the 15th March, 1471,

"Upon the naked shore at Ravenspurg," near the mouth of the river Humber, where, some seventy years before, Henry Duke of Lancaster and Hereford, afterwards King Henry the Fourth, had disembarked with a military force to prosecute claims which eventually secured to him the English crown. The issue of Edward's expe

By Sir Jeremy Sambrook. Lysons's Env. of London, vol. i. pt. 2, p. 753.

+ Fabyan, Hall, Holinshed, Stowe, Speed, and Fleetwood's MS. printed by the Camden Society.

He was recognised as Duke of Lancaster in letters of Richard the Second. See Rymer, vol. viii. pp. 84, 85. 2 K

dition makes the coincidence further remarkable.

It is unnecessary to particularise the accessions of force which Edward after his landing received, his being joined by a considerable body under his brother the Duke of Clarence, his march to Coventry, where Warwick had assembled his troops, his onward progress to London, towards which city Warwick followed him, hoping if it should continue faithful to King Henry, then at the Bishop of London's palace within the walls, that Edward, opposed by the city's bulwarks in his front, and assailed by Warwick's forces in his rear, would sustain a signal overthrow.

The issue was, however, otherwise. Warwick advanced to St. Alban's, accompanied by the Duke of Exeter, the Duke of Somerset, the Earl of Oxford, and John Neville Marquess of Montacute, his brother. He there learned the defection of the Londoners, the entrance of Edward into the city, and the capture of Henry VI. He now saw that possession of London and its palatine citadel the Tower could only be gained by a pitched battle;, he marched forward on the London road towards Barnet, and there, a little to the eastward of the highway, and near Hadley church, encamped his forces in an oblique position upon the open plain on the skirts of Enfield Chase,†

"For tidings here in this country be many tales, and none accord with other. It is told me by the under-sheriff that my Lord of Clarence is gone to his brother the late king, and that his men have the gorget on their breasts, and the rose on it." Paston Letters, vol. ii. p. 62. Gorget probably here means an embroidered device or badge of the rose en soleil. Beautiful examples of roses and suns as a collar are delineated in Stothard's Monumental Effigies, as on the figures of Sir John Crosby, of a Nevill in Brancepeth Church, and of the Countess of William Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel. See also notices of Livery Collars by J. G. Nichols, Esq. F.S.A. Gent. Mag. passim.

+ This position reconciles with the fact, the assertion of the historian of Enfield, that the battle of Barnet was fought on that part of Enfield Chase formerly called Monken, and corruptly Monkey Mead. By the epithet "Monken" the property of the priors of Walden in Hadley church is

then called Gladmore Heath, occupying the town of Barnet with an advanced guard. His right was covered by the woods of Wrotham Park, and his left by those adjacent to Hadley.

There seems to have been considerable strategic purpose in this arrangement; it commanded in a parallel line for some distance the high road, and, if King Edward should beat out and follow the advanced guard, he then might be assailed in flank or rear by the army posted near Hadley. The van of Edward's army reached Barnet in the afternoon of Easter eve, dislodged the outlying picquet, to use a modern military phrase, posted in the town by Warwick, and pursued it over the heath to the neighbourhood of Warwick's position.

Night had come on before the main body of Edward's forces arrived at Barnet. He encamped them somewhat to the westward of Warwick's line, not having ascertained its exact position, and threw up some hastily constructed earthworks for their defence. They had cannon on both sides, but Warwick's was superior in number to the King's. The rapid changes of position effected by flying artillery in modern days were then impracticable. The cannon were brought to the field in carts, and placed on rude trucks of timber in the most eligible posts for defence or annoyance. There they re

mained as immoveable as the Turkish

guns which defend the Dardanelles. King Edward commanded silence to be maintained throughout his host during the night; the low murmurs of assembled troops, the clank of arms, which could not be altogether supand the neighing of horses, sounds pressed, were ever and anon broken by the loud booming of Warwick's artillery, which maintained a random and, therefore, ineffective fire throughout the night.

The morning broke; its mists ob

recognised. See Robinson's Enfield, vol. I. p. 221.

"Bothe parties had goons and ordinaunce, but the Erle of Warwike had many moo then the Kynge." Fleetwood's MS. printed by the Camden Society, p. 19.

§ See the plates from an illuminated MS. of the 15th century illustrating Johnes's Froissart.

scured the sun, and concealed the battalions now ranging in order for the fight. The far-sounding, deep, and harsh wailings of the trumpets and prolonged echoes of the bugles called the combatants to arms. The festival of the Resurrection of our Lord did not effect on that day a truce between opposing hosts, a stay of carnage among men for the most part of kindred tongue and origin.

It may be inferred from the hints which the chronicles afford, that the order of Warwick's attack was by an advance in a kind of echellon movement from the eastward, as described in the plan, while Edward was moving over the plain in three divisions, uncertain of the precise position of Warwick's line.

No. 1 of Warwick's columns was composed of infantry and horse, and was led by the Marquess of Montacute and the Earl of Oxford.

The Duke of Somerset commanded the centre column, No. 2, composed of archers.

Warwick himself and the Duke of Exeter took charge of the division No. 3.

King Edward's army was marshalled thus:

The foremost division, No. 4, commanded by the Duke of Gloucester.

The second division, No. 5, by Edward himself and the Duke of Clarence, having with them as a prisoner King Henry the Sixth.

The third division, No. 6, by the Lord Hastings.